“Look, the photograph says, this is what it’s like. This is what war does. And that, that is what it does, too. War tears, rends. War rips open, eviscerates. War scorches. War dismembers. War ruins” (Sontag 8). Where do photographs come into war? Do they help or hurt? By people seeing these photographs, is it encouraging war or helping to stop it? Where do we draw the line of what photographs can be shown from war. War and photography is a complex subject and depends on the opinion of the audience. Photography in war can be analyzed in many aspects, how photographs were looked at and how they affected people now, in the Middle East, how photographs were taken in early war photography and how powerful a photograph really can be and how it affects people.

Times have changed. There is no way around that. When is a photograph too graphic to publish? This question can go back and forth forever. Maybe the photograph needs to be too graphic to let people see what really is going on in the war. But is that too much for people? It’s happening, but do people back in the United States need to be hit with the reality of death and violence of the war? When should photographs be shown? If a graphic photograph of an American soldier being brutally beaten is shown in a newspaper does it help stop the war or does it encourage it? It depends on the audience. One person may look at the photograph and get disgusted, be against the war and want it to stop. Others may look at it and think that this shouldn’t be going on and they want to get over there to punish the people doing this to our American soldiers. Should magazines and newspapers shelter everyone to what the reality of war is? In the instance of the beheading of Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, how much should the public see? As gruesome as it may be, seeing what really happened might wake people up to what is really going on in the war. Images 1 and 2 are two extreme differences of photographs of the beheading of Pearl. Showing image 2 it might not make an emotional impact on anyone. They will read the story, look at the picture, and know that he died in war. Looking at image 1 you can’t help but look to see the details and it’s disgusting to think that somebody would even do that. But to see the realness of it will have a higher impact on someone. When looking through the obituaries, articles on the war, or even accidents in the area we don’t really pay much attention to what happened unless we know who the person was. We might look at it, see how old they were and go on with our reading. We aren’t really interested unless it is someone that we personally know. But what if there was a graphic photo like image 1 next to the person to show how they died. People would stop and take the time to read about it and would become more attached to what is happening in the war.

"But there is shame as well as shock in looking at the close-up of real horror. Perhaps the

only people with the right to look at images of suffering of this extreme order are those who could do something to alleviate it- say, the surgeons at the military hospital where the photograph was taken- or those who could learn from it. The rest of us are voyeurs, whether or not we mean to be." -Susan Sontag

In this quote Susan Sontag referring to the painting “Flaying of Marsyas,” image 3, but it also applies to the Daniel Pearl beheading photo. Really who does have the right to look at these photographs? Do we who are sitting back and reading about the war have the right to be looking at these graphic photographs? Maybe the only people who should be looking at the photographs are the ones that can actually do something about it, but who is that? By the public viewing these photographs awareness spreads. People become more aware of what our soldiers are facing, what their reality is. We can ignore war if we chose to. It’s all around us but we could do it. Don’t read the newspaper, don’t turn on the news, don’t look at magazines. We don’t have to face the facts if we don’t want to, we have a choice. It doesn’t really seem fair to the soldiers that are fighting the war for us to turn our backs to what is going on. But at the same time if we focus too much on the war and get depressed then how are we to go on living a normal life. We are either spectators for looking at the photographs or we are cowards for turning our head.

Along with that topic of what to publish for the public to see is the topic of a true photograph. In early war photography a lot of the great photographs were staged or have been tampered with. One of the first photographic depictions of the horrific in war was a staged photograph by Roger Fenton called “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” (image 4). In this photograph Fenton two exposures from the same position. First, one where the cannonballs are in the ground to the left of the road and the second one the scattering of cannonballs on the road itself. In the case of the photograph titled “The Home of a Rebel Sharpshooter, Gettysburg” (image 5) by Alexander Gardner, the body used in the photograph was actually moved for the photo. He was moved from the field where he had fallen to a cove. Gardner leaned his body against a boulder and leaned a rifle against his body. Having staged photography kind of disappoints the audience. Before knowing the photo has been staged we create a story or a scene of what happened. It seems as if we are looking at an actual moment in time, but then you learn that it has been staged and that may not be the real scene that the body was found or that the real action took place. Like in image 6, early war photography is taken more from a distance. Not necessarily all war photography but the in action war photos. With the technology that photographers were limited too back then limits how close the photographer could get to the war without actually being in it. That leads to the staging of photographs making it seem like the photographers were right there in the action. Starting with the Vietnam War photographs were more and more true shots instead of staged photographs. An example of this is image 7, of the children running down the streets screaming in pain because of the American napalm that was dropped on them. This is an example of something that cannot be staged. Since the Vietnam War there are very few staged photographs. This suggests that photographers are being held to higher journalistic expectations. On reason for this might be that at this time in Vietnam television started showing images of war.

Lastly, is the topic of how these photographs during war effect people. Not only does it effect the public who view them but also the people that it’s happening to, if they end up surviving. Imagine you were Saddam Saleh al-Radi, who was jailed in Abu Ghraib for trying to overthrow Saddam Hussein. He was tortured by U.S. forces, they put a hood over his head and beat him. And when he was beaten so much he was knocked out they took off his hood and urinated on him. Al-Radi had said his religion doesn’t allow himself to be naked or see other people naked and U.S. forces had stripped him and well as others down and were beating them all. They made them stand on boxes, naked and threatened to rape them if they didn’t cooperate. Four days before he was arrested he was engaged to get married. He had to break off his marriage because of this event. He said he could not commit to a woman and if his wife had found out what happened she would lose respect for him. Later, his relatives saw the photographs of what had been done and he was questioned on whether it happened to him and he said no. But then a relative of his that was with him told the family what he knew. Now he doesn’t see anyone in his family because he is too ashamed.

Photographs have a greater impact on people, besides the ones that experience it themselves, then reading the words of the story. “Photos have the power to make people think, feel and take action” (Kawamoto). Reading is one thing, but to actually see something that really happened reality hits a little stronger. Photographs can also have an effect on the photographer. Some photographers shoot some pretty traumatic photos. Some find it painful to revisit the spot where they took the shot or talk about the event that they photographed. Photographs can impact someone for a lifetime, whether it be the person it’s happening to, the person photographing it, or the person seeing it. That is why war photography can make a big impact in peoples lives if they let it. We can choose to see it or ignore it.

In conclusion, war and photography are complex topics. There is so much to each of them. There are so many opinions of each of them. It is basically up to the audience/reader to determine how they want to look at a photograph. Photographs may have been staged in early war photography but it is telling history. It all depends on how the audience wants to think of the photograph. Photography in war effects people on an emotion level of how they view a photo, how the photo was created and the difference between the times of war, and the impact it has on the person, photographer, or audience.